NBC slashes; Where did name smushing for pairings come from?

[emmagrant01]

Anyone else catch this ad after tonight's repeat of Scrubs?

Announcer: "Thursdays on NBC are filled with romance. First, Jim and Pam became 'Jam' (referring to characters on The Office). Dwight and Angela became 'Dwangela'. And now, J.D. and Turk (of Scrubs) become 'Jurk'."

Followed by a scene of J.D. and Turk singing a love song to each other, with a joking but strong implication of fisting having occurred between them. The ad ends with a sweet embrace between J.D. and Turk. Apparently, this is a promo for the Scrubs musical episode coming in January.

A major network, adopting fan practices of smushing names together for pairings? Not to mention a HUGE fuckin' shout-out to the J.D./Turk slashers??? Holy crap!

So... did the practice of name smushing originate in fandom or elsewhere? Did the coining of "Brangelina" and "Bennifer" come out of fandom influences, or was it just the media being creative? Did fandom pick it up from popular culture or vice versa?

Edit: From Wikipedia: Blends and portmanteau are the closest entries I could find describing this practice.

Comments

[lrodell.livejournal.com]

*armsup* Woohoo!^^

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

:-D

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether to be gleeful, or terrified!

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

LOL, I know!

[helens78]

Hee! On "One Tree Hill", they've taken to using pairing names in the show. Or at least one character does ("...that's so Naley" [Nathan/Haley], and so on). On one hand, I'm amused that they're so zen about fanfic and fannish pairings. On the other hand, omg the hate. The worst thing about reading in SV fandom is the cutesy pairing names! *facepalms*

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Yikes! That's funny, but yeah -- I'm not a fan of pairing names. There are a couple I use in HP because you so rarely hear anyone not use them (Snarry, Snupin), but I REFUSE to use "Drarry". *shudders*

[helens78]

That sounds like a Seattle weather term. :D But is it better or worse than "Haco", which sounds like a town in Texas? ;)

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

LOL!

But you know, that got me thinking (and I edited the post to add this question), which came first: cutesy fandom pairing names or things like "Bennifer" and "Brangelina"?

[julie-grrl135.livejournal.com]

eew @ Drarry!!! *Shudders alongside Emma*

if they want a short version for harry/draco, say h/d!

[shanna-souzou.livejournal.com]

Are you talking about the "Guy Love" music video? NBC posted it a few weeks ago on YouTube. Its certainly worth a second viewing...and a third...and a fourth.

I love that man-on-man affection is becoming part of mainstream culture. A few times I've felt like Carla watching my boyfriend and some of his guy friends. But according to them, "guy love" is a very sacred state of being or something. These are very straight men, who aren't homophobic but rather completely confused by homosexuality (its like Chinese to them), but who embrace one another and say I Love You alot.

I'm very sad I missed the "Jurk" thing. THAT is unbelievable to me. Too cool!

(On a random note, I'm a huge fan of your writings and showed my boyfriend your lj while trying to find the Britney-snatch-pics to show him. It was hysterical introducing HP and Star Wars slash fandom to a complete monk, which is even more naive than a fandom virgin. He had never even conceived that such a thing exited! I might be coming out of the slash closet to him soon. eek!)

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I have no idea where the clip came from, but the announcer definitely said there would be an all-musical episode of Scrubs in January. :-D

And thanks. :-)

[karitawyr.livejournal.com]

Name smushing! That's funny. And of course J.D. and Turk have always been sooooo obviously a pair.

Do you remember a while back when TBS was showing previews for a broadcast of Lord of the Rings and they played "Secret Lovers" while Sam and Frodo were on screen?

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I didn't see it, but I heard about it!

[ashe-frost.livejournal.com]

I refuse to do name smushing. I won't even do 'Snarry' except in mocking or as an example or something. I'll do like SS/HP.

Name smushing came in fandom first, didn't it? We did it before Bennifer came along.. And Bennifer is the first I can think of..

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I dislike name smushing in fandom. I will never willingly use the term "Drarry", for example. :-P

I honestly don't know where name smushing started.

[karitawyr.livejournal.com]

I'm not much for name smushing either. However, it is funny that the mainstream media is doing it now for fictional characters.

The first real life name smush I recall hearing on TV was also Bennifer. The first fannish one I read was Clex, which sort of sounded like a disease to me.

[ashe-frost.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia says they didn't start dating until 2002.. And I'm really pretty sure fandom was name-smushing before then..

For all we know the ancient and noble house of Star Trek Fan Fiction was doing it once upon a time..

[florahart]

with Kock?

Hm. Better still: RPS/FPS cloning fic: DeCoy

[ashe-frost.livejournal.com]

Please, please tell me it is so. For all we know, that's where the term originated.

Or not.

Okay. Probably not.

[laughingcamel.livejournal.com]

ya, no. I think its spirk...

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Spirk! I love that. It sounds so close to "spunk". :-D

[laughingcamel.livejournal.com]

See and I always think of squirt...

[jamoche]

I think TWoP (televisionwithoutpity.com) is to blame. Buffy smooshed-names predate Bennifer.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what the first reference I heard was. But Ben and J-Lo dated in the 90s, didn't they?

[whimsicalwhims.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that popular culture picked it up from fandom. I think that the Buffy fandom was using "Spuffy" sometime around the end of 2001/beginning of 2002, when I first started reading fic. (While I have no idea if the Buffy fandom coined the first name smushing terms, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case).

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there's a Wiki about that? There ought to be.

*goes off to look*

[whimsicalwhims.livejournal.com]

Ooh, let me know if you find anything. This is something that I've wondered about before, but was too lazy to bother to do any research. And now a few more thoughts:

1. Another reason why I suspect that the Buffy fandom may have started this trend is because of the shipping wars that took place around that time between the "Spuffy" shippers and the "Bangel" shippers. Spuffy and Bangel were almost considered derogatory terms, depending upon which ship a person supported. (Seriously, there's a reason why Fandom Wank was always bookmarked under my Buffy folder).

2. Plus, my brand new shiny fandom, Stargate SG-1 (a show that's been on the air for ten years), does not use name smushing. On the other hand, its spin off, Stargate Atlantis, (only in its third season) does use name smushing terms. So either SG-1 fandom was very isolated in its beginning years, or name smushing didn't start until later on. (Which again, suggests Buffy fandom or another fandom that was active around the same time).

3. I really find it amusing how much fandom is influencing the media. Though this probably shouldn't surprise me that much, because there are members (well, at least one that I know of) who work for pop culture magazines.

[perseph.livejournal.com]

I hate the name smushing thing.

Spuffy for Spike/Buffy is the first one I remember hearing. So that would have been in what, 2000 or 2001 or so? Before any of the celebrity ones, I think.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Bennifer was the first celebrity one I can find any mention of. So maybe it did come from fandom. :-)

[cindala.livejournal.com]

I think the Pop fandom was using the smushed names around or before 2002, but I could be wrong. Pop and Buffy fandoms seemed to have influenced each other a lot, so maybe they were first? Either way its kinda silly.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Interesting! Though I find it amusing that the media would pick up stuff from fandom like that. ;-)

[phaballa.livejournal.com]

Re: above, and pop. Yeah, I think Popslash has been using smooshed names since about 2000 or so. And they're WEIRD. Lance Bass/Chris Kirkpatrick = Trickyfish. JC/Chris = TrickC. Justin/Chris = TimberTrick. A friend joked to me that if anyone ever wrote Justin/Timbaland, it would be called LandOLakes. *shudders* And then, inexplicably, Justin/Lance? Lambs.

[phaballa.livejournal.com]

But also, I tend to think that popslashers, at least, and possibly all of fandom, use these things because it's like a secret language. You can talk about slash out in the open and no one will understand you. I could say, "Hey, did you read that Timbertone the other day?" and no one at Starbucks would have a clue what I was talking about. Fandom is sometimes like a secret society, and some of us like it that way :P

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. Actually, it's kind of cool to be able to talk in code like that. Makes me feel like a teenager again, heh. ;-)

[phaballa.livejournal.com]

I KNOW, right? It's weird that Backstreet does not have similar acronyms. I mean, there's JuNi (Justin/Nick), but there aren't any intra-BSB smashups. I really want Nick/Howie to be called Nowie.

[scribophile.livejournal.com]

You can download the entire 'Guy Love' song for free on iTunes! They've had it up there for the last few weeks. =D

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Oooh, thanks!

[scribophile.livejournal.com]

...and actually, just for anyone else reading these comments, I uploaded it to SendSpace (http://www.sendspace.com/file/3p0s72) as well for everyone who doesn't have iTunes.

[elucreh.livejournal.com]

My first reaction to that was "was she dreaming?"

It totally sounds like one of my dreams, that there's a commercial or some other media forum using fanon terms.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

LOL! Nope, wasn't dreaming. I even backed up the DVR to watch it a few times. ;-)

[hlglne.livejournal.com]

Hooray for more gay on the networks. Rainbow love shall prevail, fundies or no fundies.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Absolutely! :-)

[(Anonymous)]

oh, Scrubs is just the happiest little show. Feeling down? EVER? REALLY REALLY DOWN? just watch Scrubs.

also, (random thought) I don't think JK would kill Harry or any of the trio. If she refuses to put in a real romance (Ginny totally doesn't even count) so it can remain a children's book, she's not gonna kill our baby. Draco? is another story.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I don't think she'll kill Harry. She wouldn't have talked about it so much if she were going to do it, I think.

[ladybelz.livejournal.com]

Soap operas have been doing it since the mid to late 80s.

[dartmouthtongue.livejournal.com]

I'm cool about the Snarry, but for some reason despise Drarry, 'cause...I dunno. It's just disgusting.

[veryshortlist.livejournal.com]

See, I've got to say that Turk and JD are BFFs. I'm the first person, usually, to look for homosexual overtones in shows and books, but on Scrubs? If JD and Turk were supposed to be a couple they'd just be a couple. They certainly hang out together enough.

I've seen that video, and probably have it bookmarked on YouTube. It's amazing. I think I watched it twice. There's seriously going to be a musical episode? OMG. So excited for that. And also, Kenny's supposed to come out to his father in January, on The War At Home.

[dramedy.livejournal.com]

To echo someone above, Ever since Luke/Laura became LnL on General Hospital(which celebrated the 25th anniversary this year), soaps have been using mashups...if not earlier.

I heard about the Scrubs thing awhile ago. yay for musical episodes!!

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

So...are J.D. and Turk both boys then? Cos it's way not obvious the gender to those of us who don't watch this stuff.